Beyond the Sea
by GoodTidings
Summary: Percy, an unassuming youth connected to the sea, witnesses a violent event which leads to the peculiar Annabeth in his arms. Their stories unfold.


Beyond the Sea

Chapter 1 – Percy Takes a Swim

My toes. A little hairy, likely smelly and with toenails slightly unkempt – but who cares? My toes are _**here**_ – nestling in the white sands of the beach. There is no other feeling like this, except, of course, the feeling when the sand leads my toes to the surf. The pull and push of the tide; how the water recreates the beach with each low and each high. It's the only thing that relaxes me and gives me some sense of being real. When I'm in the sea, I'm someone who is finally whole, though always changing.

…

After spending many of my adolescent evenings just like this, it should have come as no surprise to me that it was, indeed, a night like this that I first saw _her_. I was, as usual, preoccupied with the sensations the sea offered. Salty ocean air filled my lungs, and my toes bore down on the sand and the sand complied by filling the gaps in between; I slowed and anticipated the cool shock of the water, and finally, I was in the sea again.

Home. The waves were small that night. Calm seas, and little wind. I rested, hidden in some sense, beside my favorite beach rock, with the waves lapping softly against me.

The quiet and peace, however - for fortune or not - made her sudden cries echo across the beach. I turned my head and focused on the end of the pier, where two figures seemed to dance in the backlight of the sunset.

"Luke!" exclaimed the blonde girl, the last bits of sunlight catching her golden curls. She was facing the dude beside her (yeah, also blonde – but the fake _Sun-In_ highlights type…ugh.). "You can't do this!" She seemed, at first, strong and confident, but after a few moments, she pleaded very simply, "Please. _Please_."

"It doesn't concern you anymore, Annabeth," said the monotone guy with which she was pleading. She made a small sound I couldn't make out, and then he made a quick motion – silhouettes in the sunset – and she was over the wood of the pier, falling…falling…contorting in mid-air and then cracking her head on one of the vertical beams. She went under and in a split second she was back on the surface of the water, and it was clear she was not conscious – she was face down and not moving.

Some kind of strange adrenaline or instinct or **something** kicked in, I guess. I didn't know her, obviously, but it was much more obvious she needed help. I was 17, and an accomplished swimmer…but…could I _do_ this?

Whatever, but something clicked, and instantaneously I was lapping toward her with more force and will than I'd ever put forth in my swimming club or time spent in the water on my own.

I reached her and pulled her face from the water. Nothing. I tried to apply my very basic knowledge of CPR, but it was ridiculous to even try, considering one of my arms was holding her, and we had no flat surface. Nothing. I yelled a bit. Nothing. I continued to tread water in a state of near panic and confusion. And then - a spurt of saltwater from her lungs sprayed my face. And she coughed, and coughed – and coughed some more. After a moment or two, she regained her voice.

She was mad. Not the kind of mad when you're angry, but the loony kind. Because as I held her and told her she would be okay and that she had not, in fact, drowned, she just looked at me skeptically with large gray eyes – owl eyes, really – and coughed out with some difficulty, "You have seaweed on your head." She chortled loudly, and then hacked up some more seawater.

"Seaweed brain," she deduced, and then passed out.

I patted my head with my free arm to check for seaweed (I really just don't feel like telling you if she was right or wrong), and then repositioned my other arm around her so I was able to swim her back to shore, which came easily. The waves were as calm as before. They even seemed to _help_ us back to the beach.

Good thing I like the sea, I guess. Or maybe it likes me?

Once on land, I looked back toward the pier and that dude Luke was nowhere to be found. And this odd girl I had – rescued? – had I _really_ just done that? – well, she was curled into the small of my arm, a few tendrils of blonde curls falling across her face and onto my skin.

And my skin felt delightfully different with this tide…

…Well, that's until this…Annabeth? Yes, that's what that adversarial dude had called her – until Annabeth woke up in the arms of strange guy (yep, that would be me) and all hell broke loose.

…

My hairy, smelly toes instinctively dug deeper into the sand, searching for somewhere to ground myself as I sometimes do while bracing myself for a particularly strong wave.


End file.
